"Striving for the better picture everyday."

when I made a walk through the woods last week I recognized some mushrooms and thought: “Well, seems like it’s mushroom season again.” And I remembered my mushroom series from last fall.

I don’t know, but sometimes you forget nice things that you did some time ago. Anyway, fall stands for mushrooms, colored leaves, wind, rain, last warm sun rays etc. So, I will shoot some fall scenes during the upcoming months. Especially another mushroom series for editorial use.
Finally it’s a small project for fall.

I think it’s important to have some kind of projects that help you to expand your skills in a motivating manner. Of course, you can shoot this and that circadian and have adapted lots of techniques to a lot of scenes that results in a mixed portfolio at the end of the day. On the other hand working on a project helps to concentrate skills and techniques on a specific topic. Just try to create a common theme.

Well, Thursday was my last morning at the reservoir. I arrived at 5.00 a.m. and tried a new position on the other side of the waters under bushes. I built the hide into the bushes and hung a camouflage net in front of it and put the lens through. I was sure that this would be a great position to shoot close-up images. Finally, I cannot confirm that because there were no Osprey action that day. 8.55 a.m. was a time where they surely appeared the days before but not on Thursday. I waited until 10.30 a.m. than I went home.

I’m pretty sure that they already moved to Africa on Wednesday. Normally Ospreys stay in Germany until August. So, I will have to wait for next year. Around March 2012 they will come back and I will be there – that’s for sure. 🙂

These are last impressions from the reservoir:

Therewith the 24h Osprey Project is closed.

See you next time when I will tell you something about one of my other projects!

Today I went to the reservoir again. And it was amazing! I watched THREE Osprey hunts within two hours. And I shot all three. But, (yes I hate that exceptions too) every time I was too far away! The last action was near my first position but I changed the place before and finally missed great close-up images. Argh!

Yeah, I’m VERY happy!!! The Ospreys are still living at the reservoir!!! 😀
When I arrived around 5 o’clock the sun was rising and the scenery looked like this:

I immediately went to the place from where to shoot which I found a few days ago at my first visit after four years. Because I had no camo tent I built one with an umbrella and a camo net. I used a SuperClamp a Novoflex P19 and a mike stand to fix the umbrella. Then I put a camo net on top of the umbrella. Done! 😉

Here you can see the mike stand, SuperClamp, Novoflex P19 and umbrella construction and the fluffy interior of the “tent”. 😉

Of course, that’s me in my DIY camo tent. 🙂
(Photo details: I used a ND-Grad filter to darken the sky and a SB-800 to lighten the inside of the tent. (NIKON D200, Tamron 10-24/4.5-5.6))

After almost 3h of waiting (and listening “The Three Investigators – ???”) I recognized shrill calls and tumult. Glancing at the sky I saw a swarm of ravens chasing two bigger birds. When I had a closer look I saw that these bigger birds were – Ospreys! I thought: “Awesome! They’re still living here!” and gripped my camera. 😀
I was happy and nervous at the same time. I’m sure that the angler on the other side of the waters could smell my excitement. The ravens chased the Ospreys and they were very fast and also too far away for my 600mm lens. To make matters worse, I had to shoot against the light. So, I waited until they came around again. This time there was just one Osprey who was searching for fish. I followed it and suddenly it happened: The Osprey caught a fish! Wow! What a spectacle! I’ve never seen that before live. Actually the action happened too far away and wasn’t worth the clicks but my NIKON D3 rattled like a machine-gun – 11 fps. ” Maybe I can crop it.”, I thought.
And here is a cropped frame:

Too far away as I said but finally, the Osprey project was an success and lasted at least 4h instead of 24h! Why just 4h? Well, Ospreys need one or two fish per day only. I would have to wait too long until the next hunt in the evening (if there would be ever another hunt). Therefor I’ll be at the reservoir again tomorrow because after a cool night they need something to eat in the morning for sure.

This week I’ll continue current projects but I’ll also make a start on upcoming projects.

TRACK AND FIELD
The current project is on “Track and Field” sports scenes. It’s fun to shoot because it offers so dynamic and predictable scenes that I can arrange everything in my mind and on the the track exactly. Then I just wait for the athlete and press the shutter – “CLICK!”. Done! 🙂

Maybe I’ll give detailed information about this project in one of the following posts …

BALLET
My upcoming project will include some more portraiture. Therefor I’m looking for ballet girls. So, if you are a ballet girl or if you know one in the area around Alsfeld please let me know! I plan to shoot some atmospheric and moody images and authentic ballet scenes. I’m really looking forward to this ballet project!

OSPREYS
I’ll do a 24h nature/wildlife project tomorrow: shooting Ospreys. We don’t have any Ospreys here normally. Finally, I don’t know if it will succeed but I want to give it a try. I met the first Osprey here in our area in 2008 at a reservoir, chasing fish. At that time I had only a NIKON Nikkor AF-I 300/2.8 with a defect AF – so I had to focus manually. I was on my way home and packing my stuff when I glanced up and saw this Osprey which clawed a fish . It came closer and I put the 3o0/2.8 onto my NIKON D70s, aimed, focused manually and shot several frames as the Osprey flew over my head at a high of 25 meters or so. That was pretty amazing!
I always wanted a better shot of it and maybe the luck will be on my side tomorrow. We will see. I’ll post the results of this project the next days.